Forgetting
by Dagniro Vanaliel
Summary: Martha's thoughts on her new role. Set during 'Human Nature' with very light spoilers for that episode.


Summary: Martha's thoughts on her new role. Set during 'Human Nature' with very light spoilers for that episode.

Disclaimer: I don't own _Doctor Who, _or live on the right side of the Atlantic for that matter.

* * *

Forgetting

By Dagniro Vanaliel

* * *

_My name is Martha Jones, and I am from the year two thousand and seven._

She whispers the truth to herself in the dead of night, forcing the latent memories to the surface. Memories of herself and her family in the twenty-first century, memories of medical school, and memories of _him. _

_He's not John Smith._

At least, not here. Here, in her tiny attic room, with no one else around, he's not John Smith. He's not a human schoolteacher from 1913 and she's not his maid. Here, he's the Doctor, last of the Time Lords, and she's his companion.

_We travel through time and space._

Martha remembers the adventures they've had together, running away from danger and saving the world. She remembers their last, and though it hurts more than anything, she doesn't push it away. She embraces it, because it is a part of her. The very last bit that helps her remain _her._

* * *

When they first came here, the Doctor in human form with all his memories erased in an attempt to hide from the aliens, Martha shoved aside all thoughts of that horrible day. She didn't want to remember his screams of agony and the knowledge that she'd lost him. 

Instead, she threw herself into her new role with everything she had. Picking up new habits and tossing aside old ones, she became John Smith's maid. Every morning, as she dressed, she told herself the same thing:

_My name is Martha Jones. I was born in 1890. I am a housemaid, and I work for John Smith. John Smith is a teacher at this school._

A month later, she forgot.

* * *

Martha brought in the breakfast tray, same as she did every day. She tidied up the room while John Smith gathered his things. 

"Here you are, sir," she said, handing him a plate with toast and a cup of tea. He thanked her absentmindedly, and she smiled slightly.

He always seemed to have his head in the clouds and his mind everywhere but the present. From the moment she'd began work for his family, it was John who wasn't exactly _there. _

Right?

Something in the back of her mind was telling her that it was all an illusion, that Martha never did work for the family. That John Smith was someone else, someone she knows both more and less.

She pushed it aside. There was work to be done, and no time to dwell on it. Once again, she forgot.

* * *

That night, the feeling returned. Though she couldn't place it at first, the memory still came back in vivid force.

She saw herself and John Smith running from aliens. John Smith with a strange metal device on his head. John Smith screaming in pain.

And she remembered that it wasn't John Smith at all, it was the Doctor. A man who could travel through time and space in a blue box that was bigger on the inside. She remembered herself, Martha Jones, a woman from the twenty-first century, forced to masquerade as a maid in order to hide from these aliens.

How could she have forgotten? Had she spent so long pretending that she'd actually _become _this assumed persona? The thought terrified her, and she cried herself to sleep with renewed pain and despair.

* * *

She doesn't want to forget again. It's been a month since that terrible incident, with one more to go, and this time Martha Jones is determined to remember. As much as it hurts, she holds on to the memory with everything she's got, desperate not to forget again. 

And every night, as she struggles to fall asleep, she whispers the truth to the darkness:

_My name is Martha Jones, and I am from the year two thousand and seven. He is not John Smith. He is the Doctor, last of the Time Lords. I am not a housemaid; I am his companion._ _We travel through time and space._

Her voice shakes as tears run down her face, soaking her pillow.

_This will pass. The Doctor and I will be together again._

She closes her eyes and falls into a restless sleep, one word still on her lips.

_Remember._


End file.
